Chicago to host NATO, G-8 in 2012

Chicago will play host to world leaders next spring during NATO and G-8 summits, giving Mayor Rahm Emanuel an opportunity to shine in the international spotlight but also a chance to stumble if the inevitable protests aren’t handled well.

The new mayor’s old job helped land the summits. Emanuel, the former White House chief of staff, began lobbying his old boss, President Barack Obama, during their first face-to-face meeting after the February election, a City Hall source said. During his inauguration last month, Emanuel bent Vice President Joe Biden’s ear about awarding the events to Chicago.

Obama announced NATO’s Chicago summit during a Wednesday night speech in which he detailed a timetable for withdrawing thousands of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The summit will deal with issues related to Afghan war policies.

Chicago will be the first American city other than Washington to host a NATO gathering. The summit, next May 15-22, will coincide with a meeting of the Group of Eight industrialized nations as they convene to focus on global economic issues, the White House said.

It will be the first time since 1977 in London that the two organizations held meetings in the same city at the same time. The economic benefit to summit host cities is significant, which is why political advisers talked about whether to hold next year’s events in two places -- spreading the wealth to politically helpful states.

Cash-strapped Chicago will have constraints when it comes to security costs, said Emanuel, who intends to get private donors to supplement the city’s resources.

“While there will no doubt be security needs, this is also an opportunity for the city that is unprecedented from an economic standpoint, a job-creation standpoint,” Emanuel said. “For us, from a city perspective, this will be an opportunity to showcase what is great about the greatest city in the greatest country.”

Extra money for security would help, as meetings of leaders of international economic organizations like the G-8 have drawn violent large-scale protests for more than a decade.

Perhaps the most infamous U.S. incident occurred in Seattle in 1999, when a protest against a World Trade Organization meeting devolved into widespread rioting. About 35,000 protesters descended on the city, and police used tear gas and rubber bullets against crowds downtown in what became known as “The Battle of Seattle.”

Businesses reported more than $2 million in damage. Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper later resigned under heavy criticism of how the department handled the situation.

A 2001 riot at the G-8 meeting in Genoa, Italy, left one person dead and hundreds injured. Before a G-20 economic summit in Pittsburgh in 2009, police fired pepper spray at marchers who threw rocks and rolled garbage bins. Recent meetings have seen less violence, however.

NATO meetings also often draw crowds opposed to the actions of that military alliance, which includes 28 nations. Demonstrators smashed windows and vandalized cars in Strasbourg, France, prior to a NATO meeting there in 2009, according to reports. Police arrested more than 300.

A law enforcement official said Chicago police likely will look at past high-profile events that garnered national or international exposure -- such as the 1996 DNC convention -- to see which security procedures worked and which didn’t.

The official acknowledged that planning for the summits would likely focus heavily on demonstrations expected to take place and determining what, if any, security threats exist.

Local law enforcement experts say events of this magnitude are great for promoting the city but also put a lot at stake for people in charge, including Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy.

“This is the sort of thing that stains the reputation of cities and brings down chiefs of police,” said Wesley Skogan, a political science professor at Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research, citing the Seattle debacle.

Arthur Lurigio, a professor of psychology and criminal justice at Loyola University Chicago, said the security measures for the two summits next year in Chicago would be “unprecedented” because in addition to protecting the president, authorities would have to protect hordes of other world leaders attending the events.

“You can expect there would be pretty broad perimeters of security around any of the structures occupied by the membership in attendance,” Lurigio said. “I would (expect) that traffic will be disrupted in a way that it had never been previously.”

World leaders will come to Chicago to assess the situation in Afghanistan and discuss the future of the war effort there.

The NATO summit will serve as a chance to review goals laid out by the security alliance in Lisbon last fall, when leaders agreed to cede to Afghanistan full responsibility for its security in 2014, a senior White House administration official said. It will be devoted to reviewing progress since the Portugal summit in November.